Family Of 10 Lose All But Their Lives In Fire

KISSIMMEE — Alfred and Patricia Darkes never had much to give their eight children.

But the fire that swept through their Kissimmee rental home early Wednesday took it all away anyway.

Hours later, Alfred Darkes stood under a tree behind a line of yellow tape that firefighters had stretched to barricade his home. Darkes, an unemployed mason, stared at the blackened rubble and guessed there would be little left inside.

But what matters, Darkes said, is that his children -- ages 16, 14, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4 and 10 months -- are alive.

''I'm just glad we all got out,'' he said, shaking his head.

The fire started about 4 a.m. Family members said one child didn't wake up and was almost trapped.

''I don't know what happened,'' Darkes said. ''It just caught fire. Everyone was asleep. Everybody ran out. I had to go back in and get our little girl.''

Darkes said he and his wife realized their 6-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was missing after they had gathered the children and counted them. ''I had to go back in from the side,'' he said. ''The front was burning too bad.''

Like most of his family, Darkes wore donated clothing Wednesday. He was sweating in the day's heat and was still sooty from the fire. ''You don't get scared right then,'' he said. ''You get scared later.''

The couple had used one bedroom of the wood house and their two daughters slept in another. The boys shared a third bedroom and the living room couch. Patricia said the family paid the $250 monthly rent with her husband's occasional paychecks and some disability money she gets for a medical problem. The fire's heat, which melted aluminum windows, woke one of the boys, who screamed to warn his family. A neighbor called the Kissimmee Fire Department. Fire officials said electrical problems inside the home's walls probably started the fire.

''I got on the floor and started crawling,'' said Alfred Jr., 14, about his escape. He had a gauze bandage around his wrist and sat on a car hood near his father. ''I busted through a window to get out.''

Officials from the Osceola Red Cross and the victim's advocate program that is part of Osceola County's Mental Health Service were working to find replacement clothing, belongings and shelter for the family.

Red Cross officials offered to pay the first month's rent for the Darkes family if it could find a home. The victim's advocate program was working to replace other belongings.

''When you have very little to begin with, something like this is catastrophic,'' said Sue Manning, the program's director. ''We still need household items and furniture and baby's things and beds.''

Manning said the family would be put up in a motel Wednesday.

Mrs. Darkes spent Wednesday morning in a neighbor's house with her children.

She wore the same shorts and shirt she had escaped in and had not washed the soot from her legs. Thomas, her 10-month-old son, was in her arms.